Talk:The Spotlight

Need verifiablity.

Web site rules prohibit attributing beliefs or characterizing organizations on the basis of unidentified "critics." This is especially true if the attribution is defamatory in nature.This sectyion of the article seems to need either an identified source or be deleted.

"critics have called the newspaper a subtle recruiting tool for the extreme right-wing and noted the subtle inclusion of anti-Semitism and white supremacy undertones in the articles, and advertisements for openly neo-Nazi books and organizations in the classified ad section."

RPJ 07:27, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

These things can be verified by looking at copies of The Spotlight. There are also references in James Ridgeway's "Blood in the Face", a book about neo-nazi groups in America. -JTK

I removed the categorization of the Spotlight as a "Neo-Nazi publication" due to unverifiability and lack of sources. Also, I again removed the aforementioned paragraph of weasel words. Grandpafootsoldier 03:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Cover Up

This guy keeps removing acknowledged fact, and replacing it with vague references, that mislead the reader from the main jist of the court's findings.

Check the revision history.

User:random 18 May 2006 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.129.178.85 (talk • contribs)

Images

Does anyone have images they can scan and add to the article showing the Spotlight's different front covers over the years? They used one logo from 1975 to 1987 and another after 1987. 71.176.136.96 (talk) 22:53, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Lawsuits

How is it that the unsuccessful lawsuit by E. Howard Hunt has more coverage than a successful one by The Institute for Historical Review? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.119.204.117 (talk) 02:02, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

"Antisemitic"

Hello everyone,

I feel strongly that the inclusion of the word "antisemitic" is not only unnecessary, but is a breach of both the letter and the spirit of Wikipedia's policies of neutrality, objectivity, and parsing fact from political opinion. I have been editing Wikipedia off and on for 15 years, and I remember a time when such blatantly political language would have been not only removed immediately, but potentially flagged as vandalism. Now, I see language on hundreds of Wikipedia articles that baldly betrays the personal political opinions of the editors. Apparently, this is no longer seen as problematic on Wikipedia, and consequently, I've been engaged in a pointed back-and-forth with several other users about the appropriateness of this language. Below, I have copied and pasted the entire conversation from another user's talk page, after it was suggested that the conversation be held here instead. I invite and urge lively debate and criticism of the points I make in my initial post.

The following conversation copied and pasted from Doug Weller's talk page

Hello Doug,

Respectfully, I do not think my edit approaches any reasonable definition of "vandalism", nor was it done in error. Wikipedia is supposed to be a source of factual information. Using over-arching, opinion-based trigger words like "antisemitic" to describe the multivarious activities of the Liberty Lobby over 40+ years. Such incendiary language not only fails to add anything of substance to the article, it is (in my reading) intentionally used in such a way as to discredit the Liberty Lobby and cause the reader to dismiss their work out-of-hand. In fact, over the course of my years as a political science researcher, I have consumed a great deal of literature published by the Liberty Lobby that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Jews, Judaica, Jewishness, Israel etc. You don't have to be a fan of the Liberty Lobby's work (I'm not) to recognize that using language that blatantly expresses the editor's personal political opinion in an encyclopedia does not pass muster under any reasonable definition of "neutrality".

In fact, when one reads the subsection "Antisemitism", one finds that the evidence presented is 1) Information from the founder's leaked private letters, and 2) the "charge" that pro-Nazi and KKK literature was found in the group's private file cabinets. Neither of these pieces of "evidence" have anything to do with the literature publicly disseminated by the Liberty Lobby, but are concerned with the private thoughts and correspondence of one person connected to the group. Additionally, neither of the claims are properly cited. I can't imagine how anyone operating in good faith, guided by the principles of neutrality and striking an encyclopedic tone, could take these poorly-sourced circumstantial allegations as sufficient evidence to describe the activities of the Liberty Lobby over almost half a century of existence with one, politically-charged and provocative word.

Since you took the time to contact me and stake out a clear position on this issue, I will go a step further in hopes of engaging you on the topic. In undoing my edit and re-elevating inadequately-sourced, politically-charged language that conflates opinions with facts and private correspondence with public statements, I believe that you have come much closer to violating Wikipedia's vandalism policy than I have. Simply put, the choice to dismissively describe a public organization as "antisemitic" in such a lazy way betrays more about the political opinions of the article's writers than it does about the Liberty Lobby's supposed motives.

I have corrected what I believe to be your well-intentioned but misguided reversion, and I invite and look forward to your response to the above post.

Sincerely,

E. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Philomathes2357 (talk • contribs) 18:37, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

I've reverted your second edit. Use the talkpage to discuss and find consensus before you remove content. The attribution of antisemitism to Carto and his organizations s extensively referenced at our article on the Liberty Lobby. That said, the single-word summary of the Liberty Lobby in The Spotlight is perhaps over-specific, but it was clearly one of the LL's distinguishing characteristics. Acroterion (talk) 18:47, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

And I'm very happy with expanding it, I just didn't have time today. Doug Weller talk 18:58, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I see absolutely no substantive argument from either of you that the single-word summary of the Liberty Lobby is 1) useful, 2) In keeping with Wikipedia's neutrality policy, or 3) accurate. For this reason, I have reverted your edits once more. If you feel strongly that the inclusion of this word is both critically necessary and in keeping with neutrality, objectivity, and the separation of fact from opinion, I invite you to continue this conversation on the article's 'talk' page, where I have copied the above conversation. Sincerely, E. Philomathes2357

End of copied & pasted conversation

As I await a true rebuttal or critique of my position, I will continue to re-edit this and other articles to be more closely aligned with Wikipedia's idealized form as a source of factual information free of even the slightest hint of the personal political opinions of individual editors. I anticipate and hope for a lively back-and-forth about the nature of and proper place for politically inflammatory langauge on Wikipedia. Philomathes2357 20:45, May 17, 2020 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Philomathes2357 (talk • contribs) — Philomathes2357 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

The evidence for the antisemitism of Carto and his various front organizations, not least Liberty Lobby, is in the articles on Carto and LL, including articles from such notorious leftist rags as the National Review. Your repeated reversion seems to be a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, rather than any credible assertion of inaccuracy. We are under no obligation to whitewash the reputation of a man who gave a voice to the author of The Turner Diaries, or of any of his organizations. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:12, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Orangemike, I just stumbled onto this old thread and have no wish to start it up again. I noticed your description of NR as a "leftist rag". You may wish to rephrase that as NR is conservative, IOW slightly right-wing. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:43, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

OM was speaking ironically. Acroterion (talk) 17:10, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

As said above, simply take a look at those other articles as well as their supporting sources. I also recommend keeping talk page posts short. The WP:NPOV policy is not about avoiding valid criticism but about reporting accurately what reliable sources say. —PaleoNeonate – 21:27, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I find it barely credible that someone who claims to have been editing WP for fifteen years still has not learned to sign his posts with four tildes (~ x 4). It hardly encourages confidence, does it? Sweetpool50 (talk) 22:37, 20 May 2020 (UTC)